Midweek Mention...Beasts of the Southern Wild

Beasts of the Southern Wild

Reegs:

Does that actually work quite

Sidey:

well? Yeah, it does find that.

Reegs:

on the thing?

Sidey:

I just have to in easily track, just delete everything before that and then it works.

Reegs:

Ella did a, um, show this week and, uh

Sidey:

go. Okay. Okay.

Reegs:

Sounds, yeah.

Sidey:

There's

Reegs:

at the back though who like,

he's Obviously

one of the production team and, uh, he starts everybody clapping.

He's got the mo It sounds like the Hulk when he does a thunder clap at the back there, like he, it is just unbelievable. Like whack fuck. I bet. Start clapping

Dan:

hands like dustbin

lids.

Sidey:

Doing Beast First. Yeah. Righty Hoe. Just try the Do Don.

Dan:

So I know nothing.

cris:

Uh, to be fair, I've seen both films, although I didn't catch the

Dan:

Oh, and, and about the films

Sidey:

the start? I,

cris:

I didn't catch the last, the ending of

Sidey:

film. Oh, this one?

cris:

yeah, I didn't watch the, from the helicopter when they, when I told since, since I seen the helicopter, I just went to bed and today after work I just didn't have time.

here I'm so

Dan:

excuses. Excuses. Okay. Um.

Sidey:

this is the

[00:01:00]

start of flood week, I guess.

cris:

Flow flood week.

Sidey:

Uh, and this movie, which was a new one to me, is Beasts of the Southern Wild.

Reegs:

It, I did notice that the UK Met Office is forecasting lots of floods for this year. Yeah.

Sidey:

So this is topical.

Reegs:

Yeah, absolutely. Um, and we had, what Storm

Chandra was it? It was Dave as well

cris:

no, it was Dave. Yeah, Dave was the one

Reegs:

stormed Dave

Sidey:

And there were tsunamis in Japan

Reegs:

Today, yeah. An

Sidey:

of an earthquake.

cris:

but that's quite common, right? In

Sidey:

They get em every year, apparently. Yeah. They get at least one a year.

Dan:

Quite. Are we expecting more films on floods then over the

Sidey:

Well, our main episode will probably feature some flooding.

Yeah. Okay. And we may even have top five floods to look forward to on Friday.

cris:

potentially.

Dan:

Wow. Wow. A deluge.

Sidey:

But this is Beast of the southern wild. Yeah. Uh, directed by a guy called Ben Zeitlin.

Reegs:

Zeitlin. Yeah.

Sidey:

Um, and

Reegs:

it began life as a one act play.

Sidey:

Yeah.

[00:02:00]

You can kind of see that, I guess,

Reegs:

written by, um,

Sidey:

that anything looked bar that delicious in this.

The crabs, I suppose, were very delicious.

Reegs:

Yeah.

Um, and he, they made it, they were like a commune.

They sort of like lived on site and made it right with 16 millimeter film. Okay. Rather than digital. Um, and like everybody lived together. Nobody was paid anything, like a real labor of passion, I guess, and everybody in it was a non-professional, including two really astonishing lead performances actually from, I can't even begin to pronounce this Young lady's first name.

Sidey:

Yeah. It's a lot of, it's a really top Scrabble score if you could get this. Yeah. It's. Qe

Reegs:

que hanney. Yeah, maybe

Dan:

Kiva.

Sidey:

with an accent.

Dan:

Brian, I think you pronounced that

cris:

well. Hush Pop is her name in the

Sidey:

yeah, the character's name. Hush Pop's. Definitely use that. Yeah,

cris:

use that is sim. It's easier.

[00:03:00]

Sidey:

um.

Reegs:

The other guy was Dwight Henry was his name. He plays the dad Wink. Yeah. And he worked at a bakery and the guy who made the film went like every, his, his business was affected by Hurricane Katrina, which this film sort of loosely deals with. Yeah. Uh, the aftermath of, and his bakery is affected by it.

And he went every day to convince him to come and work on this film. And he was still baking for the crew every day as part of the, the shoot. quite a bit of a little background story.

Sidey:

Yeah. So like you say, it's um, it's not like super happy movie. Um, my Mrs bailed out and my miss doesn't like a film if it's got a sort of child in distress.

Um,

Reegs:

she was not gonna

Sidey:

so she bailed out this, uh, the first time that Wink kind of collapsed. Um, so I guess about 20 minutes in. But even before then we've had, it's like a really impoverished sort of area where they live called the bathtub. Yeah. Which is beyond the levy.

Reegs:

Yes.

Sidey:

Um, this kind of.

Reegs:

It's on the side of the levee that's

[00:04:00]

near the water,

Sidey:

basically.

I think we see them first floating around, don't we? And then

Reegs:

well, we do see that le first, it's actually opens with, with Wallace, um, hushed, uh, hush puppy. It's like dressed in a white vest. An orange, um, pants. Pants and like these stupid welly boots. And she's like picking up these chickens 'cause there's like a heartbeat motif.

She listens to the heartbeats of the chickens. She says, oh, if you listen to them, they'll tell you what. Um, there's, they're talking in code most of the time. They want food. Sometimes they want to poo.

Uh,

but other times they're talking, um, about the universe or something, or they're talking about things I can't understand is

Dan:

said.

Is this in New Orleans that area or am I miles away?

Reegs:

It's fictional, the setting, but it was actually filmed in Louisiana.

Sidey:

So it's down south

cris:

Cajun Cajun, whatever the Cajun people are

Sidey:

because they do talk about the levee.

cris:

do,

Sidey:

obviously

you can like instantly then like put onto it Hurricane

Reegs:

Well, I think there were genuine shots of, of the aftermath of Katrina in this, I think, aren't there?

I dunno. There certainly are some. Uh,

[00:05:00]

anyway. Um, so, um, the dad sort of turns up, you don't even know it's the dad at first. They live like in these trailers separately. She has her

Sidey:

she's six years old and lives on her own.

Dan:

Wow. Independent.

Reegs:

Yeah. Um, and there's no, there's no real sign of mother except a kind of shrine made out of an old baseball jersey and some lights.

Um, and occasionally she'll fantasize conversations with her. Um, and dad is, is wink. Um, and he's like just the ultimate and tough parent, basically. I mean,

Sidey:

Yes. It's not hugely loving. Well, he probably does love her, but he's just violent and shouting.

Dan:

he, he's the baker that they've convinced to do

Reegs:

do this.

Yeah. Um,

Sidey:

yeah. And because they don't live together, it's sort of, at first you're like, wait, who's the what? What is going on? What is the kind of family like?

Dynamic is so bizarre,

Reegs:

and it's really difficult to describe just how poor these people, they have nothing.

cris:

Well they've got a pig and some chickens.

Reegs:

Yeah, they've got a lot of animals, but nothing else. I mean, there's no phone, there's no,

[00:06:00]

you know, you don't wash clothes. There's like, they have nothing. They're

Sidey:

think she's stolen the, she says she steals the pants later on. Yeah.

Dan:

like me when the mist goes away.

Reegs:

Yeah. And they do go out, like you say, on the other side of the levee in this like.

Raft that they've made up out of an old pickup truck. Yeah. Like in parts of that. And they go out there and they sort of talk about how brilliant the, the bathtub life is and

Sidey:

Yeah. She's

Reegs:

the people on the other side of the levy with their, like, food in

Sidey:

Yeah. Hush puppy's giving a, a sort of narration and she's saying how Oh, daddy says that he feels sorry for them because they don't have, they have

Reegs:

to, they don't have what we have.

Sidey:

Yeah. They have to, it's like always like slave to the wage and all that sort of shit.

They're, they're more free. Yeah. Um, and that sort

Dan:

of thing. They

Reegs:

Well, 'cause it's always holiday time in the bathtub. And then we kind of zoom back to the bathtub. I think it's the first time you actually see it from above. It's like a horseshoe shaped collection of fucking half of them.

They're not even, they wouldn't even qualify to be trailers. They're like bits of wood shacks.

Sidey:

town, effectively, like a, like low quality one like that.

Reegs:

a

[00:07:00]

ho like worse than homeless almost. Um, yeah. So, but anyway, the, the whole crew's there, the whole town, they're all having a big party fireworks.

Sidey:

just holding fireworks in their hands. Yeah.

cris:

Even the kids.

Sidey:

Yeah. So Hush says, holding a firework and laying it off. You're like, oh my God.

Reegs:

But underneath it all, and, and, and Hush puppy explicitly says it, they all know that one day the bathtub will be destroyed when the floods come because they live the wrong side of the levee, basically. Um, so start

Sidey:

seeing glimpses of the beast then?

Reegs:

It's just after this bit, we go to school, we see 'em in school, which is like a one room.

Uh, like Shaq again and maybe five or six kids of all different ages being taught by this teacher. And she's telling them, everyone's made of meat. Animals are meat. Children of meat. Your meat, were all meat.

Sidey:

The curriculum

Reegs:

part of the buffet of the universe.

Yeah. And then she shows them, she's got on her thigh. In her thigh, like this tattoo of a sort of

Sidey:

war type.

Reegs:

A

kind of giant boar with like big tusks that she calls an a

[00:08:00]

rock and, um, she warns them that they're gonna come one day, the ice caps will melt and they'll come from the, from the, south.

Dan:

I

think I did a year in that school.

Reegs:

It is

Sidey:

It's a, it is a very different curriculum than you are used to seeing.

Dan:

Yeah.

cris:

She asked them if they're pussies. If you're gonna be pussies, you're not gonna make it in this world. Yeah. And that's the

Sidey:

They're like tiny little kids.

Reegs:

Um, so anyway, we get that bit and then harsh poppy re returns home, but Wink is missing. And so she just kind of scavenges around for a little while, doesn't she?

Um, she, she starts worrying about, oh, if he's gone too long, I'm gonna have to start eating my pets. 'cause she's got like a pet bird that she keeps and all sorts

Dan:

of listening to the heartbeat thinking he, he needs a poo. This one, I won't have that one. I'll have another one.

Reegs:

Yeah. This is where, um, she's having imaginary conversations with her mother while she's making this.

Stew out of cat food on the ho is fucking horrible. Like,

Dan:

have you ever tried it though?

the

cris:

hob on fire with a flame thrower.

Reegs:

Yeah. Well, it's a, uh,

Sidey:

how she starts that, how she starts the

[00:09:00]

um.

Reegs:

The, the hob, she uses a blowtorch

Sidey:

fell away and goes, just away you go. Yeah. You,

Reegs:

So this starts and she puts this food on and you can see straight away she's like, cranked it up to a million and there's everything in there.

And then dad turns up, wink, turns up, he's been missing for a little while. Comes back in wearing, he sort of stumbles in wearing a hospital gown and a bracelet still on his wrist. Um, so clearly having escaped from some sort of facility or something, he's probably collapsed out somewhere and been taken

Sidey:

Yeah. Um.

Reegs:

Um, and um, there, he, she's just sort of welcoming back when there's like the, an explosion

Sidey:

there?

Well, he, he goes back home and this is when, this is the first time I realized they weren't living together. Yeah, yeah. He goes back to his trailer and she goes, um, and when she walks back in, she can see there's the smoke billowing outta the pan and she's a bit like, fuck, uh, dunno what to do. And so she just kind of hides and then she looks back over like a chair or something and it just fucking.

Goes then into flames. Yeah. And then she really doesn't know what to do.

Reegs:

Well, what she does do is

[00:10:00]

heartbreak 'cause it's such an amazing performance. She starts drawing a picture on the wall in crayon.

Sidey:

she hides in the box, doesn't she? And she's,

Reegs:

hides and draws. Yeah. And says, oh, if scientists ever know, you know, they'll know at least Hush puppy was here. 'cause she'll say the same thing at the end of the

Sidey:

then her old man comes in and you could tell he does love her here because. he's not able, he's obviously not like, capable of dealing with like a lot of stuff, you know, his emotions or whatever, but he, you can tell he's concerned about her because there's fucking place is on fire and he is, you know, flailing around trying to find her, trying to see if he can put the flames out,

Dan:

thinking she might be in there.

Sidey:

Well, he just doesn't know. She's, she's hiding under a cupboard box, basically, and he can't see her. And eventually he does find her and he fucking loses it with her. And he is like, you, you know, he just like, I think he hits her across the face. Yeah. And he's like, you know. You just can't deal with it properly, you know?

So he gives her a real hard time.

Reegs:

but you are also being told the story from her perspective. Yeah. So like often things are a bit unexplained or maybe a bit weirder than they

[00:11:00]

could be because you're seeing it through the eyes of a 6-year-old.

Um, so is this, this is then after this bit where they go running out, isn't it?

And she, they, after he slapped her, she says, I hope you die, and when you die, I'm gonna eat birthday

Sidey:

on your grave. Grave.

And he

Reegs:

like, and then she slaps him. Um,

Sidey:

She punches him in the chest and he collapses,

Reegs:

causes a seizure or something. Yeah. He kind of collapses

Sidey:

is where my Mr was like, I'm out.

yeah,

Reegs:

yeah, I, yeah.

And then that's when, at the exact moment that happens, you get a shot of the polar ice caps melting and these AOCs being, starting to be freed from the, so you've got the literal kind of end of the world and the, the 6-year-old seeing her dad.

Dan:

of

Reegs:

as the end of the world dead. It's the same thing for her.

Right? That's kind of the symbolism of it, right? Yeah. The end of the world, your daddy

Sidey:

I thought, I thought he was genuinely dead.

cris:

but then she goes to school, the teacher is like, oh, do you want me to take you home?

He's like, no, no. My daddy will pick me up. But then the teacher goes on her boat and she just walks home. Yeah.

[00:12:00]

Looks for the daddy in the bushes where he was last seen when he was having a seizure and he is not there. And you're like,

Reegs:

well, she's also, she does tell her though, because she takes some this weird medicine back. She goes, oh, take this back.

Sidey:

This good, like a jar of herbs.

Reegs:

Herbs or whatever it

Sidey:

Yeah. It's like, like

Reegs:

she takes it back

Sidey:

to alternative remedies, I

Reegs:

Yeah. Because she takes it and buries it. Yeah. Um,

Sidey:

it like a tree stub or something.

cris:

tree. Yeah.

Reegs:

And later she'll sprinkle someone his face while he is asleep to try and save him.

Um,

so, uh, the storm that they've been talking abouts

cris:

town and sees all these alcoholics and she sees the dad walking on the street. Yeah. Because that's when we kind of realized, oh, he is actually not dead. He just,

Yeah. He's just went to get some drinks and they go to the.

and that the storm is coming and they end up in the pub.

What? Well, what you would think that's a

Dan:

pub. A bar. Yeah.

cris:

and

um,

Sidey:

is a real kind of camaraderie around all the people that are there.

Yeah, yeah. But it does involve just hard

[00:13:00]

drinking. Yeah, yeah. All the time. It's not like a beer, it's bottles

Reegs:

well, because it's part of the philosophy of the bathtub is to live like every

Sidey:

Yeah. Yeah. It's this really

Reegs:

extreme moment. Um, so anyway, he takes her back from the pub back to his trailer and he like, puts like a.

Dividing line down the trailer. He is like, right, that's your half. And this is my half. Um, and um, and then there's, she's like really scared. And then the storm comes in, um, and he tells her, get in the, they've got like a raft inside. And the plan is basically just to wait until all the water comes up and just sit in the raft and let that take him away.

And then he, he like, he gets really drunk and goes outside with a shotgun and he's firing it at the storm. You're like, fuck me.

Sidey:

He,

still wants her to toughen up. Um, and he tries to show her how tough he is by like, grabbing his gun and shooting into the air. Yeah. Later on there's a, there's a sequence where they're eating, um, chick, uh. Crab and he, he's watching her for a little while and she's sort of daintily like picking the crab and he just fucking gets

[00:14:00]

enraged and he goes over to her and he rips it out.

And he is like, no, you fucking do it like this.

Reegs:

you beast. It

Sidey:

you beast it. You've got a beast It. And he snaps it in half and then he just like slaps it down and he chucks another one in front of her and then he gets to the whole like the place. 'cause they're in like a Yeah, they're all together in this commune.

If like, they're all going beast. Dear beast, you're like, fucking hell. She's six. Yeah. And you're feeling like the pressure where she's trying to like break this thing and eventually she does it and they're like, whoa.

Reegs:

And

they're eating like

Sidey:

it's full on, basically

Reegs:

It's like, you know, like a medieval banquet and stuff, like sucking it and

Dan:

like the

cris:

Viking. Yeah.

Reegs:

So yeah, there's the big storm. It's very frightening. And then we get the aftermath the next morning. Um. Like everything's been destroyed. Most of the bathtub's gone. Mm-hmm.

Like the water level is up by the roof of the house. Um, so they climb out there to look for survivors and then eventually get onto their raft and go on a little tour around the local area trying to find people. Basically.

I

Sidey:

I thought this was like really the main sort of Hurricane Katrina. Bits for me. Yeah. Because I remember seeing all the rooftops and then,

[00:15:00]

then you get the houses with the things just, you know, spray paint on 'em if there was dead people inside or whatever.

Yeah, yeah. Um, it's

Dan:

sounds like Guernsey, doesn't it? A little bit.

Reegs:

This was worse than Guernsey, if

Dan:

you imagine it. Wow. Wow. I can't,

Reegs:

Uh, so they find a guy, Winston, another guy, Edison, and um, they teach her to catch a catfish, don't they?

With a bare hands. Yeah. And they bring it in the boat. And then he, he's like, you gotta punch it. And he's like punching it with his bear fist to kill it. Um. And then this is the bit where they go into the bar and all that you were talking about with the crab and all that stuff. Um, you think that you see some wild stuff, don't you?

There's that tiny island with a horse just stuck on it.

cris:

But then the, the, the woman, the teacher also says that, uh, in a few days, or we do know that there's salt in that water. Yeah. So all the fish will die and the trees will get dry. So, because at the moment they're getting the catfish and all that, they just pick them by hand and they've got enough food, shrimp, all that.

[00:16:00]

abundant,

right?

Sidey:

Yeah. Short term.

cris:

in, yeah, and, and then they, this is where I found it confusing when they are all building on top of which I think is the school or the old school building, and they do all the spikes on top of the roof. Do you remember

Reegs:

that?

Yeah, I did see that. I didn't

cris:

what is the point of that was that I didn't really, that didn't make any sense to me.

But because the flood is the main issue, not anything coming from above.

Yeah.

But anyway, and they have like, it's basically a little island, which is. A house and they all sleep in

Reegs:

They have a funeral for the, for the people that died. But their funeral's like a big party. They don't, you're not allowed to be

cris:

you're not allowed to.

Yeah. Yeah. You're not allowed to be

Reegs:

No crying. He's like crying, pointing out. No crying.

Sidey:

He's also stipulate how he wants his to be.

Reegs:

Yeah.

Sidey:

Yeah.

cris:

Uh, and then we see the

Dan:

to the 6-year-old. Yeah.

cris:

They're asleep. And we see Roger, I think, and uh, the dad. And some other guy, they are doing something with a body of a alligator or

[00:17:00]

crocodile

Reegs:

that's there's two weeks past, like you say, and the water starts to sub subside, but everything's dying. Like it's just left in Marsh. 'cause like Chris says, it's got polluted water from the factories and all sorts of shit in it.

So like everything is dying. And uh, then you do see. They've got this, they call it a garfish on Wikipedia. I don't know what it looks like. A fucking alligator.

cris:

it looks like

Sidey:

yeah, there is like an alligator. They've got a longer, narrower snout in there. I think they're even more sort of prehistoric than an alligator

Reegs:

A harsh puppy sees them sneaking off with this like inflatable alligator thing and a load of petrol, um, in the morning. And, uh, yeah, their plan, crazy plan is to kind of row out there and blow up the Um, that will put the water back into the rich people's side and sort the bathtub out. Um, so, um, I think once the teacher works it out, doesn't she

cris:

Yeah. She follows them and then hush pop hides in the teacher's boat. Yeah. And the teacher's

[00:18:00]

like, well, what are you doing? Blah, blah, blah. And in the end, basically hush poppy presses

Reegs:

well, there's a big moment, isn't there? Where she's the, the teacher's saying, no, don't. 'cause she's somehow ends up with the detonator.

So they've placed these explosives there and Dad Wink is going blow it up, blow it up, and the teacher's going, don't blow it up. And then boom. And she blows up the levee. Um,

cris:

And

then you can see the water just going down.

Sidey:

when the, when the levee

cris:

But now there's just swamp and you can see them walking and they bail. Barely pulling their feet outta the mud because it's so much mud and everything's still dead.

Reegs:

Yeah. She says it's didn't matter that the water had gone. Sometimes things are broken so bad they can't be put back together, and that's what's happened to the bathtub.

cris:

Yeah.

Reegs:

Mm. Um,

Sidey:

And we're getting, every now and then we'll get a shot of these, what, what we call it, a rocks or rocks, and they seem to be getting bigger and bigger. just charging sort of across the screen.

Reegs:

first they're, they're defrosting in the ice, then they're moving, actually moving across the ice. Then they're in the deserts and stuff.

[00:19:00]

And what it becomes really clear is that they're getting closer and closer and closer

cris:

and they look like wild boars, but with horns.

Reegs:

Yeah. And it's quite hard to tell how big they are as well. I think

Sidey:

are enormous. Yeah. I think to me it looked like they were growing, but I dunno if that was just the perspective. Um,

Reegs:

Uh, there's a bit where they have an arm wrestle and he talks about his death with her, and that's the bit where he tells her not to cry and all that.

She looks absolutely terrified. This

cris:

where I, sorry, just to interrupt, but this is where I, until where I've seen, because yeah, after they blow up the, the levy, the, there's an aerial shot and you kind of see how everything is.

There's nothing green anymore. Everything is a swamp and all that. And then there's another shot and you can see the helicopter and you, you realize that the first image from the helicopter and the helicopter goes. This is a forbidden area or something. You shouldn't be here. No one should live here.

Reegs:

get off. It's an evacuation. Yeah, they order an evacuation

cris:

and that's where I, I, I, I stopped watching 'cause I went to bed

Reegs:

So pretty quickly they're

[00:20:00]

taken off to a federal re like medical emergency

Sidey:

against their will. I

Reegs:

Against their will. Against their will. Yeah. There four

Sidey:

dragged, you know, they're like, you know, like a horror thing. We've been like dragged across the floorboards, but they're like clinging on, don't want to go. Yeah. This is their home. As far as they're concerned

Reegs:

and everything, we've just, it's all been green and brown because we've been outside in nature the whole time.

And then suddenly you're in like a really harshly lit fluorescent

Dan:

I'm assuming this is people from the rich side of town who have,

Reegs:

well,

Sidey:

it's the government

Reegs:

I mean

Sidey:

helping in Inver common, but they don't want it.

Reegs:

the establishment and you know, 'cause these people have clearly rejected the rest of. Society basically.

I mean, this is close to like indigenous people as you can really imagine Um, and uh, so

Sidey:

in the, even in this, it's like a field hospital kind of evacuation center, isn't it? Yeah. And she's separated from Wink and kind of looking over and he, they do a procedure on him, which is never clear exactly what his condition

Reegs:

is.

He's told something away from the child, she's watching it, and she can just see him get suddenly really

[00:21:00]

animated. And then I think he's,

Sidey:

we see a kind of, um,

Reegs:

he's sedated, isn't he?

Sidey:

You know, like a surgical wound. Yeah. Um, been stapled together or whatever, and I guess he was told that you've got some fucking terminal condition of some kind.

Reegs:

but we also, see

her like for the first time, like clean with her hair washed in, like wearing clothes that are like normal and um, so he comes around, um, in intensive care, the dad, and then he, he sort of has like this big drop and they try to sedate him again. And then he pretends doesn't he, that he swallowed the medicine, but he hasn't spits it out after they've left and sort of sparks this mass exodus

Dan:

eventually cheeked it.

Reegs:

In the ch He's

Dan:

call it. Isn't?

Reegs:

Yeah. Um, so he's got up and wandered out the hospital and he's seen loads of the other residents in the bathtub. And he gets the kids with them and they, so basically everybody just suddenly leaves the, uh, the emergency shelter and gets out and he leads them all to a bus, and then he tries to

[00:22:00]

shove hush puppy onto it without him, they're like, off you go on your own sort of thing.

You'll be safer without me, is basically what he's saying. Um, but she, she's having none of that, isn't it? Um, that's when he, she like runs off, off the bus and that's when he says, oh my, what is? He says, my blood is eating itself. I'm dying. her I can't look after you, so you have to get on that bus.

Dan:

that community's gonna be the one that looks after you.

Reegs:

Yeah. Um,

Dan:

nearly seven now. You've gotta stand on your

Reegs:

stand, you've gotta go and get a job and work.

Sidey:

Well, he's obviously known and he is, been trying to, in his way, toughen her up and prepare her for her life without him, even though living separately, um, in his own way.

And

Dan:

And I, I guess, but

Sidey:

it's just like, it's escalating. It's getting closer and

Dan:

closer with the loss of the, the mother who you said is kind of a shrine or, or whatever.

Sidey:

has a thing now, doesn't she? Where she sees a light.

Reegs:

Yeah, they, they, they take everybody back to the bathtub and she sees a light out on the, um, on the water.

So they get their own. Ridiculous.

[00:23:00]

It's there on a life buoy, aren't

Sidey:

they? They do say buoy. I can never, I can never reconcile that.

Reegs:

Yeah.

And, uh, so they swim out like a load of these kids. It looks fucking miles just on this rubber flotation device out to this like floating, basically a floating brothel, um, grown inducing called the Elysian Fields, uh, where she, you know, it is basically like a place where men go to have the company of women.

And, uh,

so there's a bunch of kids there now

around

Sidey:

that she's found her mother Yeah.

Reegs:

Yeah. Um, and she, the, the woman's really kind to her, doesn't appear to recognize her even though she's like convinced that this is her mother that they found in this place. Um, there's a bit, oh, she, she picks her up 'cause they're all tired and, uh, she picks her up and holds her.

And hush puppy says, I can remember being held twice

[00:24:00]

in my life.

Sidey:

Yeah.

Reegs:

it like, what a lovely thing it was to be held by this woman. And, uh, yeah. And she does remember the two times. One of her, when she's a tiny baby and another one of her dad doing that, I think, anyway, so they don't answer the question of whether this is the mother or not.

They just move on. Um, and she just decides that's it. I'm going back home, going back to the bathtub. So we've just have this weird moment out in this brothel and then go back home. Um, and they arrive back at the bathtub just as the, a rocks arrive at the bathtub as well.

Sidey:

Yeah, they're fucking massive.

Reegs:

They are absolutely massive and people are running away in terror,

Dan:

Well, like trailer size or,

Reegs:

bigger than say like an um, an American school bus.

You know, like those big yellow buses, like

Sidey:

that

and size. And she's, you know, six years old. Tiny.

Reegs:

Yeah. So they're all stampeding towards her. And she's sort of

Sidey:

she crocodile undies it.

Reegs:

Yeah, she sort of puts

Dan:

it, yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Reegs:

Uh, they all stop, um, and they stare right

[00:25:00]

at her and she says, I've got to take care of mine to it, like really sort of fierce for a 6-year-old.

And they demure to her and sort of go, mm, and all these like little noises stuff, and then they slink off and turn away. So

Dan:

she, and run all that way.

just Yeah. Yeah.

Reegs:

Yeah, yeah. Um, yeah. So that's, that's it really. And then, um, she goes back to Wink and it's pretty clear he's dying

Sidey:

this is goodbye. Yeah,

Reegs:

it's a goodbye. So she brings him his last favorite meal and, um. He tells her how well she did and then he's given this like he dies and then he's given this like viking funeral kind of thing,

Sidey:

isn't it?

That's what he said. He wanted to be put on a boat and set on fire. And so he's like, okay, that's what we're gonna do then.

Reegs:

So they send him off and they have a big party. Basically, and then it ends on a bit of narration. She says something, um, I see I'm a little piece of a big, big universe and that makes things right when I die. The scientists of the future,

[00:26:00]

they're gonna find it all and they're gonna know that once there was a hush puppy and she lived with her daddy in the bathtub.

And, uh, that bit did actually get me a little

Dan:

end Yeah. Okay. What a bizarre sounding film. Um, and obviously there's, um. You know, those aics seems to be the fears of something.

Is it

Sidey:

I guess that's like the, and she confronts her fear. Yeah. Um, and wins the day in that sense, um, it's, it's sort of, if it wasn't for the ORs, it's, it's a fairly straight film in the sense that it's just a family sort of drama or whatever. Um, but it has this sort of fantastical element put into it.

But generally speaking, it's fairly straight. And when you're watching it, first of all. You know, the, the, the father has a kind of arc because he seems like an asshole. Um. But he's probably been raised in exactly the same way. There's there

Dan:

had the trauma of maybe losing his wife and things and Yeah, exactly.

Sidey:

It is all really fucked up and there's, they're all completely, you know,

[00:27:00]

uneducated and it's very, very sort of rough and rural and whatever, and he is trying to do his best by her, even though he doesn't really know how to articulate things very well and all that.

Um, and he sort of does right by in the end. But it's, it's a fairly bleak film I think. But there is sort of some, some sort of optimism towards the end,

Reegs:

I found this one a really strange one. It's sometimes like genuinely really very moving and, and other times like just disappearing straight up its own ass. Like, uh, like really pretentious. I thought sometimes, like, particularly that Elysian field scene and like, oh, come on man, I get it.

Like, that was the bar in, in the afterlife where people would go and all that sort of stuff. So it's like, I, I thought it's sometimes really heavy handed. I didn't really know. Like I got the idea that the story's being told from her perspective and it made things seem mysterious and all those sorts of things.

But I also didn't really know like what it was trying to say. It sort of fetishized the sort of poverty aspect of it all. Like going, oh, wouldn't it be great to live like this? And I was just looking at the whole time thinking this looks fucking awful.

Sidey:

don't think I could do 24 hours there.

Reegs:

this is horrendous

[00:28:00]

living conditions, awful for a child.

Like, you know, the relationship is is like, and then the movie doesn't really

Dan:

you are on the rich side, you've been spoiled. They've got freedom. They're really living. They don't have to be

Reegs:

sort of

Dan:

in. It's trying to by any

Reegs:

Yeah, it's trying to give you that sort of message, but

Dan:

you, we were talking about going to work, weren't we?

Like sort of, oh my God. Who's making up these hours of work that

Sidey:

I would take my work over this?

Reegs:

better,

Sidey:

no. I would take my, my situation over that.

Dan:

Right.

Reegs:

Um, but the performance, I think what saves it is the performance from the kid is so fucking special. Like it really is an amazing performance because there's loads of stuff that's wrong with it.

I thought the score was overbearing and it looked like it was being shot by somebody who had Parkinson's because like, they couldn't, this film needed a tripod or something, do you know what I mean? Like the budget was

Dan:

real documentary style was it? Or like that kind

Reegs:

dollars extra for a decent tripod.

That's all they needed. Um, so,

Dan:

but it was a budget film then?

Reegs:

It was

0.8

Sidey:

mil. Yeah.

Dan:

Okay. Well, no, we've, we've

reviewed cheaper films.

Reegs:

I think the big thing about

Dan:

this, maybe not many, but it's

Reegs:

by white people, and I find that a little bit troubling when the.